#it's not like earthsea is at all challenging reading

[cruelsister-moved2]

this review is the saddest thing I've ever read

[postgameroutesix]

you were so right, we only talk about gothic books lmaooo, so now i wanna know, what else do you like to read, lee?? i have an infinite tbr anyways lol so i’m always looking for recs

we dooo i love it though <333 my library recently got wuthering heights and the bluest eye so ill hopefully be able to get back to u on those soon

EHEHEEE let me see….. i cant think of another specific genre but some non-gothic (fiction) books i love areeee

the metamorphosis by kafka. has one of my favourite opening lines to anything ever … ive read lots of his short stories and really love him as an author but nothing stuck with me quite like the metamorphosis

god save the child by toni morrison …. ohh my god she never misses. her last novel before she passed away iirc? really interesting use of perspectives in this one which i love, she does that so well. and her commentary is as sharp as ever

the kite runner by khaled hosseini (“for you, a thousand times over!”)

giovanni’s room by james baldwin (i NEEEEED to read more baldwin ive read some of his essays also but i need to get on reading another country + beale street….)

rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead by tom stoppard (a play rather than a novel, but Really stuck on my brain)

antigone by sophocles (another play. but again. devastates me….)

the wizard of earthsea by ursula le guin … fantasy book of all time

i tend to gravitate towards introspective books that deal with political/social commentary overall i think. which is likely one of the reasons i like the gothic, as that’s something its very known for. i like books that challenge and sort of force you to engage with them, reading as an active process yk? which is also why i can be a slow reader at times i suppose …. but i like to feel as if im being asked questions by the text, as if im being constantly asked what do you think about this? or just - what do you make of this? how do you feel? what is the author telling you? that sort of stuff

[dreamsbeyondsleep]

Reflecting on The Lathe of Heaven

spoilers below the cut

The central thesis (or at least what I think the thesis is) of The Lathe of Heaven is...interesting to me because Haber's goals are still somewhat sympathetic. Someone literally walked into his office and presented him with the opportunity to unfuck the world, it's understandable that he would try. I don't think Le Guin of all people would be opposed to radical systemic changes to the world for the betterment of humanity, and of course it makes sense that the sort of mindset you have when setting out to make these changes i.e you can't see yourself as some kind of benevolent god outside the social and physical context of the world. Still though, I feel (one of) the thesis(es) the book is trying to put forward, that meddling with the world incurs the risk of you being "destroyed on the lathe of heaven" as Haber was, still points to a sort of reactionary sentiment. It's similar to the idea of hubris, that the world can't be changed in any meaningful way by human beings. Maybe that not the lesson, because George also mentions that you have to be "in-touch" in a way that Haber isn't. Is George supposed to exemplify "in-touch"-ness? I don't know, maybe the point is that he's in the process of learning, which is why he gets an apprenticeship/job with an Alien at the end. It just seems like this line between not meddling/understanding your "place" in the world and complacency is blurry.

I love that Le Guin's writing made me think so much about this though! I mostly read for entertainment, but a challenging idea here and there is really enriching. I'll definitely see if I can get the Earthsea books next time to go to the library

[bobbyinthegarden]

February Reading Wrap-Up

Doing my own little review of all of my February reads in the style of one of @isfjmel-phleg‘s posts (in no particular order)

Alec by William di Canzio 

I did a whole review for this one, so I don’t feel the need to add much in terms of commentary. 

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

I’ve actually got a whole review in-coming for this one, which I’m in the process of writing, as I read this book as part of my 2023 Reading Challenge for the Vampires category. I gravitated towards this book because I am a big fan of genre bending, and this has that in spades: it’s historical fiction, it’s queer romance, it’s eco-feminist fiction, it’s sci-fi, it’s everything. No regrets, I had fun, more thoughts in-coming.

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. LeGuin  

This is the second book in the Earthsea series. I absolutely adored A Wizard of Earthsea when I read it in January, and bought the second book immediately after finishing the first and it didn’t disappoint. I’m not going to write a whole review for this book, so I’ll just lay my thoughts down here. I love Tenar so much, she’s such a great character to spend 250 pages with, the story is mature and timeless, the world building is great and the prose is beautiful, plus it was great to see Ged again, and see what’s he’s up to. No notes, highly recommend to everybody. I’ve still got four other books in the series to read and I can’t wait.

Return to the Secret Garden by Holly Webb

I understand that I’m not the target audience for this book (the audience in question being like 7-13 year old girls), but man, this book was a slog to get through. I mentioned above when I was talking about The Tombs of Atuan that Tenar is such a great character to spend 250 pages with, and I cannot say the same about Emmie (the protagonist of this story). I have a whole review in the works for this one, but the long and short of it is that this book is basically just less interesting rehash of the original book, and I did not enjoy it.

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

The whiplash of reading Return to the Secret Garden and then immediately following it up with All Creatures Great and Small was quite astounding, in the best way possible. James Herriot (the pename of Alf Wright) is an incredibly compelling writer and relays his experiences of veterinary practice in Yorkshire in the 1930s with wit and charm. I feel like I learnt a lot from this book, as he is able to balance storytelling with technical language about complex medical procedures very well, but the book is also really funny at times, I was genuinely laughing out loud at the parts with Ticki Woo. I’ll probably read the other books in the series too, once I can get around to them.

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

This isn’t a book as such, but a serialised comic book which has since been released together as a graphic novel. I was very into the Terry Zwigoff film adaptation when I was a teenager, and I did read the comics before, but many years ago. They’re extremely edgy. I’m quite difficult to shock, but there was some jokes that really made my mouth drop at times. Others have drawn similarities to The Catcher in the Rye and I completely see why, teen angst and alienation are major themes in both works. It’s pretty depressing and (like I said) edgy, so definitely not for everybody, but I do think it’s good.

The Secret Garden on 81st Street by Ivy Noelle Weir and Amber Pedilla  

Got a whole review coming for this one too. I definitely liked this one more than Return to the Secret Garden. The art style isn’t really my aesthetic, but it’s cute. There are things to like here, though I have very mixed feelings about Colin’s portrayal, and the book really feels like a PSA about mental health sometimes. Like I say, I’m going to write a whole review soon, and I’ll explore my thoughts in more detail then.

I also bought some self-published comic books from some other tumblr users this month, which I thoroughly enjoyed, they were:

Tender is the Night by @thequeenofbithynia

Really wonderful 1920s inspired short comic about butches in love. Was a nice palate cleanser after reading Alec (I highkey actually enjoyed it more than Alec though) with absolutely gorgeous art and illustrations, Andreas’ art style is beautiful and 100% my aesthetic. Here’s a link to where you can buy it is you’re interested.

Signals by @wuntrum

Really cool semi-relgious horror story about a girl who becomes obsessed with and begins to worship a radio tower after she becomes convinced that she can feel the word of god through electrical currents. Really cool, plus the art is also amazing. It kind of reminded me a bit of Serial Experiments Lain (which is an anime from the 90s that I really like). And here’s a link to where you can buy that one too.

[eccentric-nucleus]

so there's this old actionbutton review of prototype (that has apparently been removed from the actual website, which i guess is fine b/c on reflection the review overall isn't super good) that has a part that i think about a lot.

Prototype is clearly a game that was originally meant to be a challenging action game that took the concept of super-powered main characters out of the ego-trip where you simply explode in ever greater fireballs the entire universe, like a Final Fantasy character in a platformer, and into the realm of the thoroughbred racer. A realm where the power is a tool that must be used carefully, because there’s so much of it, that there’s too much of it. Restraint is what we play video games for, in a sense. We restrain ourselves from making the wrong choices. We take pleasure in our sense of timing. We enjoy learning and growing and doing and, above all, not doing (the same thing over and over, due to failure).

b/c like... yeah that's the thing with power? power invites complications; that's kind of what power is: the ability to affect change at greater magnitudes, which invariably means a reduction in your fidelity of control. unintended side-effects and all that. but the entire concept of the 'power fantasy' is about not having the drawbacks of power, & that's what video games are all about, so it makes sense that that doesn't really come up that much in games. leveling up is just Good, it makes you better at things, because if it made you worse gamers would find that to be bad design, etc

this also comes up constantly in progression fantasies. unsurprisingly!! b/c their thematic content is entirely the power fantasy, so of course getting more powerful is an unalloyed good.

there's another prose chunk in a similar vein i think about a lot that's from a wizard of earthsea, near the beginning: duny (as a kid, before he's named ged) has his island raided by barbarians and they're gonna burn down the town and kill everybody.

He had worked all night at the forge-bellows, pushing and pulling the two long sleeves of goathide that fed the fire with a blast of air. Now his arms so ached and trembled from that work that he could not hold out the spear he had chosen. He did not see how he could fight or be of any good to himself or the villagers. It rankled at his heart that he should die, spitted on a Kargish lance, while still a boy: that he should go into the dark land without ever having known his own name, his true name as a man. He looked down at his thin arms, wet with cold fog-dew, and raged at his weakness, for he knew his strength. There was power in him, if he knew how to use it, and he sought among all the spells he knew for some device that might give him and his companions an advantage, or at least a chance. But need alone is not enough to set power free: there must be knowledge.

(incidentally i think reading progression fantasies has made me a worse reader. they're frequently so wordy and yet nothing happens, and the writing never really says anything or has specific sentences that capture the mind, and so i've gotten into this really bad habit of skim-reading through them snatching out nouns and verbs. so now when i go back to reading prose that's actually, you know, good, i still end up skimming it and missing out on relevant details, since relevant details actually matter in real stories, instead of just being wordcount padding.)

anyway the rest of a wizard of earthsea is basically all about the relationship between knowledge and power and what responsibility comes with that.

i guess this is yet another post all about how i really don't like the thematic simplicity of all the progression fantasy but boy have i been thinking about that a lot as i've been writing other stuff. fun fact, 'goblin cave', my royalroad story, and 'blinded by the summer sun', the tmnt porn i've been writing, have basically the same themes b/c they're both actually about the blunt nature of power + the problem of needing power to exist in the world vs. the grotesque nature of people who seek only power. b/c as you can see by all the above that is kind of a thing i've been thinking about a lot recently. it's just one of them has turtle porn.

i mean i'm fairly sure i've mentioned it here also but they're very heavily influenced by dead zones of the imagination, which i would recommend everybody read. it's only like 20 pages.

To be more precise: violence may well be the only form of human action by which it is possible to have relatively predictable effects on the actions of a person about whom you understand nothing. Pretty much any other way one might try to influence another’s actions, one at least has to have some idea who they think they are, who they think you are, what they might want out of the situation, and what their aversions and proclivities are. Hit them over the head hard enough and all of this becomes irrelevant.

It is true that the effects one can have by disabling or killing someone are very limited, but they are real enough—and critically, it is possible to know in advance exactly what they will be. Any alternative form of action cannot, without some sort of appeal to shared meanings or understandings, have any predictable effects at all.

[...]

As long as one remains within the domain of theory, then, I would argue that simplification can be a form of intelligence. The problems arise when the violence is no longer metaphorical. Here let me turn from imaginary cops to real ones. A former LAPD officer turned sociologist (Cooper 1991), observed that the overwhelming majority of those beaten by police turn out not to be guilty of any crime. “Cops don’t beat up burglars,” he observed. The reason, he explained, is simple: the one thing most guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to “define the situation.” If what I’ve been saying is true, then this is just what we’d expect. The police truncheon is precisely the point where the state’s bureaucratic imperative for imposing simple administrative schema, and its monopoly of coercive force, come together. It only makes sense then that bureaucratic violence should consist first and foremost of attacks on those who insist on alternative schemas or interpretations. At the same time, if one accepts Piaget’s (1936) famous definition of mature intelligence as the ability to coordinate between multiple perspectives (or possible perspectives) one can see, here, precisely how bureaucratic power, at the moment it turns to violence, becomes literally a form of infantile stupidity.

and so on. that's power, baby! the power to define a situation and stop anybody else from objecting to your framing. by killing them!

[lizziestudieshistory]

20 Books Challenge

I'm not sure if this has an official name? But I was tagged by @oneanxiousstudybuddy to list the 20 books I'd keep if, for some reason, I was told I had to get rid of all of my books - horror of horrors! The main rule: you can only keep one book per author/series. Sorry it took a while (I'm indecisive!) but here is my list...

Emma by Jane Austen

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (I was going to say the Lord of the Rings in a one volume edition but I feel like that's cheating as it is usually considered a trilogy... And The Silmarillion is my favourite anyway)

Being Protestant in Refomation Britain by Alec Ryrie

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin

Salomé by Oscar Wilde

The Red and the Black by Stendhal

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (this was the hardest one for me to pick as I also adore Richard II and which one I'd go for depends on the day)

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (I have been growing increasingly more critical of Sanderson over the last few years but this book has too much sentimental value to let go - and I'm specifically talking about my beaten up paperback)

Earthsea: the First Four Books by Ursula K. Le Guin (I know I said the Lord of the Rings single volume edition was cheating... However, I actually can't find an individual edition of the Earthsea books anymore, they're ALL in one volume like this. If you don't like it take your complaints to the publisher! But if I had to choose one from those I've read it would be The Tombs of Atuan)

The Iliad by Homer

The Divine Comedy by Dante

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The Complete Poems by Christina Rossetti

So, those are the books. I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with this list - I think 10 are definites that I wouldn't change no matter what happens in my life, others are more temporary choices. This list would also look VERY different if I was allowed to pick more than one book by an author.

I'll tag @stefito0o and whoever else wants to do this - I've lost track of who's done this/has been tagged as I'm late to the party. If you do it please tag me though as I love to see people's choices!

[briarcrawford]

In Defense of Direct Inspiration

There is a belief that writers come up with ideas out of their imagination as simply as you pick apples from a tree, but that is not always the case. Sometimes writers hear a story, and it stays with them so long that they are inspired by it. Put simply: they take a base story, and build off it.

Now you might be thinking “well that is cheating!” and if that is the case, then Disney is the biggest cheater of all. Disney really started to explode in popularity when they took fairytales, like Cinderella and Snow White, and gave them life in animated form. When that worked for them, they moved on to folk tales and books.

For example, in the book The Littlest Mermaid by Hans Cristian Anderson, the base story is quite similar to the Disney The Little Mermaid, but they did some tweaking (like by not having her die at the end), added some Disney magic, and boom, a hit. Even Mulan is based off a folk tale.

My point is that what Disney is great at is taking stories, like they did with the fairy tale The Snow Queen, and building it into a money maker(Frozen). They do not always spend time trying to come up with a basic plot, instead they take an old story, take what they need, and reimagine the rest.

Doing this not only saves time and money, but it can be an interesting challenge for your imagination. If you retell Little Red Riding Hood the way it has always been told, people will not want to read it because they will feel like they have read it before. However, if Little Red Riding Hood is a hunter and the wolf is a werewolf, it changes it drastically. It is still the same story in basics, but it is the twists you weave in that draw your readers to keep reading.

If Disney is not the example you want, the same is done for almost every popular book there is. Harry Potter (don’t kill me for saying this, Potter fans) is basically a mix of The Wizard of Earthsea, The Worst Witch, and mythological creatures from our world. Game of Thrones is almost the the exact “plotline” to the real lifeWar of the Roses.

No one argues that these authors are cheating because they made the stories their own and wrote them in a way that spoke to people.

For a final example: Star Wars (the originals) follow “The Hero’s Journey” plotline beat-for-beat, but the addition of space, aliens, and the inspiration from old samurai films, gave us the Star Wars we know. For those who do not know, the hero’s journey is the most common template for stories that involve a hero going on an adventure, does the adventuring, and comes home a changed person.

So, if you want to write a reimagined fairy or folk tale or even a time in history, do not feel like you are cheating. There is still plenty of work to do, and writing a reimagined work does not make you less of a writer.

[smalltownfae]

Top 5 Books To Read This Year

Tagged by @xserpx (thank you :D)

I have this weird thing where I prioritize authors I haven’t read yet in order to find out if they are a new favourite. This happens because I already know I can count on the books I have left to read from authors I really like. That means this list doesn’t have any Octavia E. Butler, Patricia A. McKillip, Kazuo Ishiguro, etc, even though of course I am always excited to read their books that I have left to read.

1. “The Curse of Chalion” by Lois McMaster Bujold - This was sold to me by @beeblackburn as a more optimistic Hobb and from the two chapters I’ve read already I did notice some similarities in characters and feel, but the writing isn’t as pretty. I put it on hold because I am reading “Imago” in order to finish the Xenogenesis trilogy and those two are ebooks. I am trying to stick to 1 ebook at a time. If I read more than one book at once it will have to be a different format. Currently I am also listening to “The Last Unicorn” audiobook and I started “Station Eleven” on paperback, for example. Also, I have been more in a scifi mood, but Peter S. Beagle is changing that a little and pulling me back into fantasy again.

2. “The Traitor Baru Cormorant” by Seth Dickinson - This book has so much hype around it and people keep saying how good it is and how the ending destroyed them. I too want to be emotionally crushed by a book again. I started this book last year actually, but I put it on hold to do some reading challenges and then ended up reading books with similar themes. However, I decided to read it again from the beginning this year and I did love the chapters I read of Baru’s childhood so it will not be a problem to reread them at all. My only fear is that I might want to read the other books immediately and the series isn’t finished yet.

3. "Jade City” by Fonda Lee - I can’t stand people hyping these books so much and me not being a part of it. I keep hearing how great the characters are and how much the 3rd book made them cry and once again I also want to be obliterated by a book. I need to know. I am not aiming super high for character work because I know how hyped books work, but I expect “The Poppy War” level at least. I am a bit in doubt about this one because I don’t like mafia movies and such, but I heard someone put “Jade Legacy” along with “Fool’s Fate” as books that made them cry so now I got to know (if I ever get there). Points for being a complete trilogy.

4. "A Wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula K. Le Guin - Storytime: I tried this book before and was not into it. I started it on ebook and wasn’t feeling it then I listened to half of the audiobook and my mind wandered so much I missed most of the story and I was so bored. HOWEVER, I had the wrong expectations going into it. I was expecting something similar to how Hobb approaches story in Realm of the Elderlings since so much in it seems to have been inspired by this book. Turns out that was the wrong approach so I tried reading it again recently keeping in mind that this would be closer to a Patricia A. McKillip book and... it went much better. It really gave me the same feeling as “The Riddle-Master of Hed”, which is an unusual McKillip work because it’s more traditional fantasy and less fairytale-esque, but I still enjoy. I already asked a friend to let me borrow his book that includes the first 4 in this series so if he remembers I will get it tomorrow. Reading it will happen eventually.

5. “Deathless” by Catherynne M. Valente - Look, you people really need to stop posting quotes from this author around because they are really beautiful and I am so tempted all the time. I don’t even remember what the book is about. All I remember is that every time I read quotes from it I am like “wow that’s really pretty” and yet I still haven’t read it! That will hopefully end this year. I will at least try this book out.

6. (because I’m a cheater) “Lonely Castle in the Mirror” by Mizuki Tsujimura - The concept of this book is magnificent and have you seen the cover? It really seems like it would be my thing. Plus, storygraph says this is emotional and mysterious. Two of my favourite moods. I got to read it.

Tagging: @whatevsbla @monpetitrenard @electropeach @vydumaj @alloysius-g @logarithmicpanda @garnetrena

[gunkreads]

I finished A Wizard of Earthsea last night, which is a book that’s been... kind of on my list? for quite a while now. I’d heard of the books, as any semi-researched fantasy reader has, but I never really got around to trying them. They always sat in the same realm as the Shannara books, where I knew they were genre-shaping fantasy to some extent, but i was afraid they wouldn’t be my speed. I still wouldn’t say it’s DIRECTLY up my alley, but i would definitely post it in the “wow i get why people love this” column.

I’m a sucker for name-based magic--I think it’s a wonderful catch-all way to have your wizards be able to magick themselves along their adventures--and LeGuin, I think, treads the perfect line of exposition on that front. You don’t know enough about naming magic that you can see the cracks in it (and neither do the characters), but you absolutely know enough that when something new comes up, it feels right.

For a 3rd-person quasi-omniscient perspective (I don’t know what it’s called specifically, but that narrative style where the narrator is omniscient, but chooses not to comment on everything), the characters are remarkably well-developed in terms of their feel. I’ve found that less in-the-mix narration tends to lose some character quality, but this book really didn’t to me; I felt like every character was speaking to the narrator personally, and they all rounded out pretty solidly. There’s also a great amount of faith placed in the reader to round out the characters themselves, which is probably a contentious choice for many people. There’s a very fine line where this is conveyed properly, and that line is in a different spot for everyone. Some people prefer a bit more direct fleshing-out of characters and some prefer a more indirect approach, but luckily LeGuin’s choices lined right up with my personal preference.

The world is also just. It’s interesting. I found myself WANTING to read about how this little bumfuck town operated and HOW they ended up out here. Unfortunately, almost everything you see in this first book is a little fishing village or major fishing town, but even still, there’s the right amount of variation and twist to each place that I could distinguish between two ports. As an island boy myself, I really liked the base premise of a world that operates alongside the ocean, with survival being impossible if you don’t accept the ocean to some extent. The Ninety Isles sound like heaven. Minus the dragons, of course.

Reading the afterword in my specific edition, it’s very interesting how LeGuin basically says “I could’ve done better, but the times were the times”. She discusses how at the time, it was actually DIFFICULT for her to get cover art of Ged being copper-skinned, because Fantasy Men Are White. I don’t know much about the history of fantasy as a genre, and really i’m pretty new to it because i’m fairly selective about what kinds of stories i like, but I was unsurprised by LeGuin’s explanation of how so many “official” depictions of Ged were “lily-white”, to use her words. Personally, I never really assign actual physical features to characters in books--they’re more a collection of ideas than a tangible shape--so it doesn’t come up often, but when I was trying to picture scenes from this book I found myself putting in a little bit of extra effort to remind myself Ged was brown, so I understand the challenge she faced with that. She also laments her lack of women with agency, which I also understand, but her justification is that she needed a certain degree of conventionality to sell the book in the first place. Can’t really fault her for that, I think, in 1967. Having a dark-skinned protagonist and his black best friend was probably a bit of a challenge in itself, and there are only so many bars you can raise at a time before a publisher starts to mitigate risk.

I know this reads like a review, but I’m not qualified for that sort of thing. I can say that if you followed me for Wheel of Time and you haven’t checked out Earthsea, you absolutely should. It’s not what I’d call a similar story or world, but it has this kind of ethereal high-fantasy vibe that I find so appealing. Imagine Lord of the Rings without the pedantry in terms of tone.

And best for last: I want to just note LeGuin’s take on conflict. There’s no war, no militarism, no major good-vs-evil struggle in this book. It’s about a man (boy by modern standards) going out to right a wrong and finish what he started. This was FANTASTIC because it allows the story to be a proper adventure without losing any stakes. Here’s the premise, spoiler free: Ged has to chase down his shadow to keep it from hurting the world, but he’s scared to because if he loses the shadow will take him and be able to wield his own vast power. This means he gets to go through different places in times of both crisis and peace, which makes the world feel... not so bleak as other fantasies might offer. People are living on and will continue to live on. Ged’s quest has stakes for the world at large, but the world is far too big to be shaken to its core by one person, wizard or not. It’s such a refreshing take on “antagonism” and it really  kept me hooked in. Books where no person has any safe haven in the world are just so sad to me and I can’t really handle the stress of knowing that no one can live a calm life. Earthsea isn’t like that at all.

So basically give it a shot, the book’s like 200ish pages long and reads REALLY fast.

[bobbyinthegarden]

2023 Reading Challenge

Fantasy: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin

Mild spoilers ahead 

Starting off my 2023 reading challenge with a book I’ve been meaning to read for years: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin. I’ll be totally transparent here and say that fantasy is not a genre I typically tend to gravitate towards, and so I’m not as well read in the genre as I maybe should be. However, I sense that this may be changing because I absolutely adored this book with my whole heart and devoured it in only two days – I quite literally couldn’t put it down!

A Wizard of Earthsea was first published in 1968 and is the first book in a series of six (which I am absolutely also going to read as well as soon as I can get my hands on them!). The book follows its young protagonist, a wizard named Ged (or Sparrowhawk), as he embarks on his wizard training, and later faces off against forces beyond his understanding. The fantasy world in which Ged lives is called Earthsea, and it has no major land masses, like ours, but instead has many hundreds of islands, and so its people have a universal dependence on sea travel. Magic, in Earthsea, is not hidden, but is openly acknowledged and understood by the people, though most people are not able to practice it. The magic works on the True Name idea, in which everything that exists has a true name (that sometimes even they don’t know) and if you can learn a thing’s true name you gain power over it, and so a lot of the training process for young wizards is memorizing many, many of the true names of different things, so that they can exercise power them. Obviously, as a concept, this isn’t something that is unique to this book, but I absolutely loved the way the way that it is implemented within the story and the worldbuilding, as something that is a fundamental building block of both the culture of Earthsea as a whole, and the specific plot of the book.

I really love Ged as a character, how flawed he is and how much his character learns about himself over the course of the story is really wonderful. The plot itself is a pretty typical Campbellesque Heroes Journey, but his arc is intensely psychological, beginning the book mostly good natured but full of arrogance and pride at his superior magical abilities, something he is forced to confront when his ego leads him to displays of immense power that he doesn’t yet understand, that causes him and others significant pain, this awful mistake humbles him, forcing him to recognise the darkness that exists within him and ultimately make things right.

One thing that is also worth mentioning about this book is race. Almost all of the characters are people of colour, including Ged, who described as having ‘copper skin’. Ursula K. LeGuin’s father was an anthropologist who did extensive research into Native American cultures, particularly the Yana people, and this seems to have been a major inspiration for Ged and many of the other characters, including Ged’s close friend Vetch, similarly being described as having ‘dark skin’. LeGuin herself said on the subject:

My color scheme was conscious and deliberate from the start. I didn’t see why everybody in science fiction had to be a honky named Bob or Joe or Bill. I didn’t see why everybody in heroic fantasy had to be white (and why all the leading women had “violet eyes”). It didn’t even make sense. Whites are a minority on Earth now—why wouldn’t they still be either a minority, or just swallowed up in the larger colored gene pool, in the future? […] I think it is possible that some readers never even notice what color the people in the story are. Don’t notice, don’t care. Whites of course have the privilege of not caring, of being “colorblind.” Nobody else does. I have heard, not often, but very memorably, from readers of color who told me that the Earthsea books were the only books in the genre that they felt included in—and how much this meant to them, particularly as adolescents, when they’d ound nothing to read in fantasy and science fiction except the adventures of white people in white worlds. Those letters have been a tremendous reward and true joy to me. So far no reader of color has told me I ought to butt out, or that I got the ethnicity wrong. When they do, I’ll listen. As an anthropologist’s daughter, I am intensely conscious of the risk of cultural or ethnic imperialism—a white writer speaking for nonwhite people, co-opting their voice, an act of extreme arrogance. In a totally invented fantasy world, or in a far-future science fiction setting, in the rainbow world we can imagine, this risk is mitigated. That’s the beauty of science fiction and fantasy—freedom of invention.

I encourage you all to read the entire article that this quote is from, here is a link

However, one downside of the book that I will mention, is that there are elements of misogyny within the work that does seem a little jarring (the whole “weak as women’s magic” thing in particular), especially from a writer like Ursula K. LeGuin, whose work is usually hailed as extremely feminist (just check out her book The Left Hand of Darkness, and you’ll see what I mean). LeGuin herself has acknowledged that this is a shortcoming of the book and I’m told that the later books in the series are much more feminist than the first one, so I’m exciting to see how my opinions will change when I’m able to read the other books in the series.

Despite that, this book was a truly great start to this reading challenge, I’m really looking forward to reading both the other books in the series, and some of the other books that I have in mind for the different genres!

[starlit-pathways]

rules: tag people you would like to know/catch up with❤️

thank you so much @faeinthefog for tagging me, you have such incredible taste???? (as always) also, brb adding piranesi to my already-too-long tbr list

...speaking of lists that are far too long!! *cracks knuckles* let's get down to business!!!!

last song: excluding my many varied writing playlists, then probably eclipse by moonbyul or love poem by iu, including my writing playlists then this was my last listen

last movie: the prom. didn't personally vibe with it but i know it meant a lot to some (personally, i feel like a lot of what it was trying to do has already been done better by other films—like ek ladki ko dekha toh aisa laga). it had very pretty colours in it?? and i definitely wouldn't pass up the chance to play emma in an actual musical, but i feel like the story itself is too much of "aaaaand THIS is how the Gay Struggle™‬ applies to the average straight person!!!" which I don't even mind in a story that's done WELL (again, see ek ladki ko dekha toh aisa laga, or even one of my favourite books; the seven husbands of evelyn hugo) but i don't personally feel like it was done well enough here to pass it off

currently watching: oh no. a LOT. uhhhh okay let's try counting

1) godless—a miniseries on netflix which is v. good and very beautiful; essentially a story about fatherhood, masculinity and the loss/lack of it in a historical "wild west" type setting (it's a lot more diverse than it sounds. i promise.)

2) the fresh prince of bel-air—i shouldn't have to describe this one to many people lol, but it's basically a comedy about a quick-witted, very street-smart boy who goes to live with his very wealthy and privileged family in bel-air. it's very funny, and very heartwarming but i'm only a couple episodes in so far.

3) my mister—i'm only a few episodes into this drama myself but. damn. it's a show about two very broken, wearied people whose lives are falling apart in different ways (a very principled slightly older man, and a very... alternatively principled younger woman), who find each other and help each other heal. i've seen their relationship described as "everything but romantic", though the subject of romance and the nature of their relationship is questioned in the show and sometimes by the two characters

4) taskmaster—this one's just FUN, and also quite honestly pure chaos. i'm trading favourite shows with a friend, and damn if i'm not having a blast with this one. it's basically about a group of comedians who get given a set of tasks/challenges to do, to see who does them best—it has the exact same vibe of the joke "how many comedians does it take to change a lightbulb?". if nobody watches anything else of the show, i implore them to at LEAST watch this tree wizard clip. it's a masterpiece.

5) rick and morty—probably not my favourite type of show (monster of the week's not my usual style), but still good if you're it's intended audience. trading this with another friend, and i'm very much enjoying the experience of trash-talking all of the adult characters every episode with them.

6) mr. iglesias—this one's a very new addition. am also watching it with a friend. comedy about found family in a classroom full of underprivileged kids and the one teacher who really cares about them. i like it! i love marisol a lot as a character and mr. iglesias is very wholesome

re-watching:

7) the untamed—i'm going to be watching this show in some capacity for the rest of my life. i'm on my seventh watch by now and it never diminishes in quality. it's a truly epic introspective character exploration, about a quick-minded, entirely chaotic and very free-spirited man who dies and comes back in quite literally the opening moments of the show. you get to see his descent from being the world's envy to being the world's villain. it's a wonderful fantasy series about perception, the nature of morality, of family (born, raised and chosen) and about building a better world. did i mention that the main character is—as far as chinese censorship laws would allow—very bisexual and the story very heavily features a love story between him and another man? this was the edit that got me into it (it has spoilers but without context it won't make any sense anyway)

8) healer—what a drama. this is all about the power of information—how being informed and making information available can heal a nation that was built to be corrupt. starring a character who is basically a man who is a much poorer batman (kind of like a batman for hire?) with superman's love life (the show's got one of the best and most valid love triangles i've ever seen—and that's coming from somebody who typically HATES love triangles with a burning passion) and a woman who is feisty and strong-willed but not in an overbearing way? as well as amazing action, from somebody who normally can't stand action. i love the chemistry between the two romantic leads and just. i love the three leading characters, and a great deal of the periphery ones a lot. this show is absolutely incredible, would highly recommend

9) it's okay to not be okay/psycho but it's okay—a show that says neurodivergency and found family rights!!!! it's a very healing and introspective drama, but equally very intense/gripping/interesting? the chemistry between the two leads is astounding, and i just really love the amount of empathy this show has? it's truly stunning to watch and experience. starring an absolute badass of a woman, who acts almost entirely on impulse and communicates with the world through storytelling and fairytales, alongside a very kind and nurturing man who doesn't know how to communicate when he's miserable and an autistic man, who struggles deeply with his own fight for independence (i wasn't too sure on him at first, but he grows into just as much of an equally important character as the other two and i loved his arc).

currently reading: the earthsea quartet, by ursula le guin—i'm really loving it! it's probably not one of my favourites (yet), but she has such an interesting way of building up her world, and there's such a strong sense of compassion in every word she writes.

also i've recently found and fallen in love with this fic series. it's very nsfw and modern au's aren't usually my thing for historical (or even semi-historical) fiction/fantasy, but there's just something about sex worker!wei wuxian and translator!(and also secret fashion nerd!)lan wangji both being absolute disasters and also really cute and really repressed but also being neurodivergent and disabled characters (i'm SO here for autistic!lan wangji, traumatised!wei wuxian and chronically ill!yanli all being happy) and getting therapy that really appeals to me.

currently craving: crisps. always. of the salt and vinegar variety (this specific variety especially), of course, but there's never a day that passes when i'm not craving crisps

this was really fun!!! now for the worst part of this............ tagging. OKAY. so... please know that nobody is under any obligation to do, or even acknowledge, this—and also, if i missed you, you see this and you WANT to, then consider the act of seeing/hearing this a formal invitation

@ethereal-sserendipity @lillb5678 @genericfandomusername456 @mars-aria @ikatella @juliedohbigny @multiplequestionmarks @itiredwriter @myrim-anna-rose @gaysofmyheart

[letterboxd]

Generating Magic.

As Studio Ghibli’s first fully 3DCG-animated feature film, Earwig and the Witch, lands in theaters, director Gorō Miyazaki chats with Toussaint Egan about the magic of flawed protagonists, the joys of 1970s anime and seeing Star Wars with his dad.

“When I make an animation, it’s not that I don’t want adults to enjoy it, but I really want to make films for children to watch.” —Gorō Miyazaki

“For Gorō, Hayao Miyazaki is not a father but rather a tall wall.” That’s long-time Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki speaking to the Los Angeles Times in a 2013 interview about Gorō Miyazaki, the eldest scion of one of Japan’s most celebrated directors. For over a decade and a half, the former landscaper-turned-director’s career in anime has been attached to expectations associated with his father Hayao Miyazaki, whose body of work spanning more than half a century is an exemplar of the medium.

Despite, as Suzuki-san put it, “the fate of one who has a legendary father”, and a less-than-enthusiastic reception to his 2006 directorial debut Tales from Earthsea, Miyazaki Junior has forged ahead with the express goal of asserting his own identity as a creator, with a body of work that is distinct and apart from that of Studio Ghibli’s most famous co-founder.

No more is this apparent than in his 2014 animated series Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter, a first for both Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli as not only his (and the studio’s) first animated series, but the studio’s first fully CG-animated work. While the elder Miyazaki has only lately come to express interest in CG animation in the form of his 2018 short film Boro the Caterpillar, Gorō, by contrast, has wholeheartedly embraced the medium, marking a clear and distinct break between his own aesthetic sensibilities and those of his father.

“If I were to create [a] hand-drawn TV anime series now, I would only be following a path carved out by Hayao Miyazaki and others as a latecomer,” Miyazaki told Asahi Shimbun in 2015. “Well, I wouldn’t like that. Expression by computer graphics remains incomplete, so both the workers and myself believe that there still remains something that we could do.” In choosing to pursue CG animation, Gorō Miyazaki is free to be held to no precedent other than his own.

Earwig and the Witch, Miyazaki’s first feature-length film since 2013’s From Up on Poppy Hill and Studio Ghibli’s first-ever feature-length CG-animated film, is another push forward. Adapted from Diana Wynne Jones’ 2011 children’s book, the film was made for Japanese television, but is being released theatrically elsewhere. The film tells the story of Earwig, a clever and precocious young orphan who, unbeknownst to her, is the daughter of a powerful witch on the run from malevolent forces. When she is adopted by the witch Bella Yaga and a mysterious shapeshifter known as the Mandrake, Earwig must use every ounce of her wits, charm and guile to assert command of her new life and learn the secret of her foster parent’s history.

Early Letterboxd reviews for Earwig and the Witch are mixed—such is the fervor for Ghibli’s hand-drawn masterpieces, comparisons will always exist, and there’s a common feeling that the film’s ending is abrupt (possibly setting things up for a sequel). Those who have enjoyed Earwig and the Witch, however, write that it is “solid, undeniably charming and lovely” and hope that “people who watch this will go in with an open mind and [refrain from] judging Earwig unfairly”.

We talked with Miyazaki over Zoom to discuss his motivations for adapting the book, the anime and films that have inspired and motivated him throughout his career, and what he would most want to be remembered for as a director.

Most of your films are adaptations of writers like Ursula Le Guin, Astrid Lindgren and now Diana Wynne Jones. What did you feel when you read the original Earwig and the Witch novel for the first time? What inspired you to turn it into a film? Gorō Miyazaki: When I first read the book, there were two things that really stuck out as very interesting to me. The first one was the protagonist, Earwig. I love the fact that she wasn’t portrayed as your typical, good obedient girl. She’s someone who, when she knows what she wants in her life, in order to achieve those goals, she doesn’t hesitate to use people or make people do as she wants them to do. And even in scenes where something bad happens and she could cry, she doesn’t cry. She’s strong-willed and works to overcome those challenges. She acts and works to come up with ideas of how she could overcome these challenges, so those traits of that character really appealed to me.

The other thing was how Jones portrays the concept of magic in the book. Bella Yaga, the witch, while she’s making all these magical spells and potions in the workshop, there’s also a physical sort of work at play. She has to blend these elements and ingredients, the mystical and the physical, and mix them together. So to see someone create magic in that way was a very intriguing idea to me.

What kind of stories do you typically enjoy reading? What are some of your favorite books, and what are you reading right now? In terms of fiction and fantasy, I’m a fan of Dianne Wynne Jones’ writing. What I like about her stories is that they have a lot of quirky characters. Sometimes the protagonist will be someone who would be quite difficult to interact with in real life. The characters have flaws and dimensions. They’re not often one-dimensional, neither good or bad. Her characters have different sides to them that make them really attractive and charming. In terms of books I regularly read though, I tend to prefer reading more non-fiction books than fantasy.

How did the experience of working on Ronia, a 3DCG-animated series, prepare you for the experience working on this film? Do you feel you’ve grown as a director since your last film in 2011? It’s hard to tell whether you’ve grown or not by yourself, but in terms of working in 3DCG with Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter, I was able to see what the possibilities of working with 3DCG were in terms of being able to [make] the characters act more, perform more, and show a different range of emotions. With Earwig and the Witch, I wanted to make it a story that was less driven by the [narrative], but driven by the characters and their performances, such as Earwig’s reactions, expressions, thoughts and feelings. I would say that the experience I had with Ronja was very much a learning experience and place to experiment with different ideas. Each episode of Ronja would have a different challenge—where for one episode I would try to make it into more of a comedy, the next episode would be just the two main child characters talking with each other, and then there were episodes with elements of horror or violence featured throughout. It was a place for me to explore and experiment with what was possible through 3DCG animation.

Writer-director Gorō Miyazaki.

What were some of your favorite animated films growing up that you return to for either inspiration and entertainment? I try to avoid going back to reference these animations or to emulate exactly what they did, but in terms of memorable and impressive anime from when I was growing up, Hayao Miyazaki’s Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro is one that I still hold dear. I wouldn’t call myself a hardcore movie or anime fan. My generation grew up during a period when anime became huge in Japan, so Leiji Matsumoto’s Space Battleship Yamato (1977) and Yoshiyuki Tomino’s Mobile Suit Gundam (1979–1981) were very popular at the time. I remember watching those and them leaving a big impression on me, as well as films like Star Wars (1977). I remember going to the theater when it first came out and that had a big impact on me.

A while back I was wondering who I went to see Star Wars with when it first came out, I couldn’t remember who I actually went with. So when I went back to my parents’ house and we were talking about this, it turns out the entire family went to go see the film. So I actually went to go see Star Wars with my father, Hayao Miyazaki! The second one, The Empire Strikes Back, my mother told us, “I don’t need to go and see this,” and so I remember going to see that one with my dad and my brother as well.

Your films often touch on the relationship between a child and their parent. How has your relationship with your son inspired your work? What films do you love watching with him? I’ll usually go and watch whatever film he wants to see [laughs]. Most recently we went to go see the new Demon Slayer movie. I thought it was very interesting, I felt like it had a freshness about it. Even with hand-drawn animation, I could tell it was done by a younger, ambitious generation of animators trying to accomplish something new.

What have been some of your favorite 3DCG animated films in recent years that have inspired you as a creator working in the medium? I love all of Pete Docter’s works at Pixar. I haven’t seen Soul yet, his latest film, but I loved Inside Out and I loved Monsters, Inc. when it first came out. I really enjoyed Tian Xiao Peng's Monkey King: Hero Is Back. What I loved about their films was that, as the audience, you could feel the energy, devotion and enthusiasm of the creators wanting to create something great using CG through the art form of animation.

As a director, what kind of stories are you most interested in telling? What would you ideally want your work to be known and remembered for? When I make an animation, it’s not that I don’t want adults to enjoy it, but I really want to make films for children to watch. Something that will inspire them in how to live their lives as they grow older and go into the world, something that might encourage them and offer hope. In terms of how I’d like to be remembered, I hope people will remember me as someone who always came up with something different than what they would’ve expected, and [from] what he did before. Not inconsistent, but someone who was always exploring new and challenging possibilities.

Related content

Ghibli Magic Moments: the Letterboxd Show podcast episode featuring Adam Kempenaar, David Jenkins and Tasha Robinson

Ghibli Goes Digital: a chat with Ghibliotheque’s Jake and Michael about the studio’s works heading to Netflix

The Top 100 Anime Series on Letterboxd

Follow Toussaint on Letterboxd

‘Earwig and the Witch’ is distributed in the US via GKIDS, and will be in limited theatrical release in the US from February 3, and on HBO Max from February 5. A digital release follows on March 23 with Blu-ray and DVD April 6.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

the fantasy genre

As a kid I never really got into fantasy.  The closest I came was during the time I spent immersed in a strange sort of fundamentalist phase – I wasn’t just some nerdy kid reading The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and so forth, I was also reading Acts of Caine and reading A Wizard of Earthsea and all these other books that were clearly fantasy but seemed kind of standard fantasy.  It was a whole other world.

There’s something really appealing about this kind of fantasy – there’s something undeniably impressive and “cool” about it.  Even when we take into consideration the fact that most fantasy is horribly misogynistic or uses grotesque monsters or indulges in mind-bending nonsense, it’s still really cool and impressive.  It’s not just a “well-liked subgenre of literature,” as some people would have you believe.  It’s a genre whose very existence throws the viewer for a loop.  It’s a genre with its own canon, its own heroes, its own villains, its own languages, its own cultures, its own societies, its own governments.  It’s … completely unlike anything else?

Of course fantasy is nothing new.  The word “fantasy” has been in use for thousands of years.  But what has happened over the last couple of centuries is that the “facts on the ground” have changed so radically that it is no longer possible to boil an abstract idea like “fantasy” down to something that is “well-liked.”  Today if you don’t like “fantasy” you are either a fundamentalist or a snob.  If you like it, well, you’re a leftist or a fundamentalist.  It’s either “seriously nerdy” or “not seriously nerdy,” and either the latter is considered a condition of intellectual inferiority or a certain sort of intellectual and political fervor

It’s a weird state of affairs, this, where your weird little niche is being challenged by a mainstream that won’t even acknowledge you exist.  But what can I say?  I just can’t escape the fact that fantasy is what I know.  I don’t know what any of these games actually look like, how they work, what the rules are, if any.  But I know what it is like to step into that slipperier, more imprecise world of fantasy, where the shadows are darker, the possibilities infinitely more fantastic.  And I know that there are other worlds out there, filled with other possibilities, where everyone’s got their little niche, and their own little fanzine, and they’re all fighting each other for their little pieces of the pie, but no one is actually trying to slice their pie in half and serve both halves to the nation

So there it is.  The soundtrack to my youth.  The music I listened to when I was ten years old.  The music of the mythical realm, not the worldly realm, the realm of men and action and convenience and burgers and KFC.  The realm of the spiritual ones, the elves and the trolls and the grey giants and the summer storms, the realm of the raving lunatic with his strange hair and the smell of his own festering wound.  The realm of the utterly ridiculous

[quiet-fern]

Tagged by @ampiyas to post my reading list for 2021. Coincidentally, I was able to come up with my own 2021 challenge with 21 prompts just this week :>

I’m so shy and still new to this side of Tumblr haha but I love all the mutuals I met this year 💖

Tagging @panaceaphantastica @neurotic-nymph @elderf1ower @brujasdelmar @moonlitpool if you wanna ~

Here goes!! Feel free to reblog or suggest titles under the prompts. For next year, I want to read more women or POC authors! Same goal with @ampiyas, I also have to read more from my country ! PM me if you wanna read a book together!!

💌 READING LIST 2021 💌

Hayao Miyazaki Recommendation (Childrens YA)

- Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

- 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

Magic Realism

- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

- House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

Latin American Author

- Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector

- Loose Woman by Sandra Cisneros

Russian Author

- Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

- Complete Collection of Poetry of Anna Akhmatova

Poetry Collection of an Author I Already Like

- Duino Elegies by Rainer Rilke

- Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverman

Essay Collection by A Woman

- A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

- Plainwater by Anne Carson

Diary of Woman POC and/or LGBTQ+

- Diary of Frida Kahlo

- First journal of Anaïs Nin

Contemporary Fiction by A Woman

- Little Weirds by Jenny Slate

- Girl Woman Other by Bernadine Evaristo

Philippines Social Issue

- The Philippines is Not A Small Country by Gideon Lasco

- Stories of Struggle: Experiences of Land Reform in Negros, Philippines by Sarah Wright

Philippines History and Culture

- Isabelo’s Archive by Resil Mojares

- Culture and History by Nick Joaquin

Indigenous Peoples or First Nations History

- As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker

- An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Africa History

- Still looking for books on this!

Food Colonization

- Still looking for books on this!

Connection to Nature

- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer

- The Overstory by Michael Powers

Climate Change

- The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells

- Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Graphic Novel

- Maus (all volumes) by Art Spiegelman

- Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Essays on Art or Design

- In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki

- Design As Art by Bruno Munari

Essays on Food

- You And I Eat the Same by Chris Ying

- Foundations of Flavor by Rene Redzepi

Creativity Instructional

- Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

- Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver

Book About New York

- The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead

- Don’t Be A Tourist in New York by Vanessa Grail

Horror written by a woman

- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

- Haunting on Hill House by Shirley Jackson

[atamascolily]

Extremely subjective opinions about Star Wars planets

Inspired by @carmarthenfan. I did my top ten faves, and then gave up trying to put these in order, so they're literally in the order they occurred to me.

(This is not conclusive; I left a bunch out. There are a lot of Star Wars planets, y’all.)

1. Tatooine.

Iconic. Terrible place to live. Great place for making your characters suffer. Who cares that the ecology makes no sense when you have wide open spaces, exposed rock layers and salt flats, and a rockin' aesthetic? Not to mention wretched hives of scum and villainy and also, like, ACTUAL DRAGONS.

(Thesis: literally half of what makes ANH so compelling is that it's set on Tatooine.)

2. Yavin IV (Legends)

AKA Jedi Jungle Friendship Camp or Space Guatemala. If I was going to live anywhere in the GFFA, it'd be here. Temple ruins (even if they are infested with Sith ghosts), hot springs, rainforests, biodiversity, awesome eclipses and a giant blood-red gas giant constantly overhead, not much in the way of development... what's not to like? (Okay, the Sith ghosts are a problem, but they got rid of those eventually.)

3. "Forest moon" of Endor, ROTJ

Redwood forests are awesome. I'd totally live in an Ewok treehouse. They're the only place in the galaxy with handrails!!

4. Coruscant

I'd probably hate to live there, but it's a great setting for fic. A surprisingly large amount of wildlife and plant life, despite the rampant development. Epic architecture, lots of culture, Luke has a cool retreat in the Manarai Mountains and Han and Kyp go skiing at the poles. Home of "the room where it happens".  

(most of my fics to date are set on Tatooine, Yavin or Coruscant, lol)

5. Alderaan

Too bad the Empire blew it up. :( IDK about the whole Killik business, but Space Switzerland seems great, and I'd live there in a heartbeat. An actual multi-biome world, wow! I should write more fics about this place.

6. Myrkr (Legends)

Jungle planet with metallic trees and furry, Force-repelling lizards. Also giant vornskrs that use the Force to hunt. Don't forget Talon Karrde's awesome tree base!

7. Dagobah

I love this place, even if living there would be a challenge. Actually kinda has a functioning ecology in canon. Love the sheer abundance of snakes, plus dragonsnakes and the mangrove-like gnarltrees, which are the adult form of giant white spiders (I love plant-animal weirdness like this).

8. Mulako Comet (Legends)

Not technically a planet, but how can you not love a resort carved out of a giant frozen comet HOW. 10/10, we stan. The perfect place for a romantic getaway, especially if you are a water nerd like Luke.

9. Vjun (Legends)

The Gothiest goth place ever to Goth. Has names like "River Weeping" and carnivorous moss that nibbles on Obi-wan. <3. Vader's Goth castle was originally here before the writers moved it to Mustafar.

10. Honoghr (Legends)

Another terrible place to live, thanks to the Empire's sabotage, but I love there's actually an attempt at an ecological plot line here (Timothy Zahn is surprisingly good at those). A single biome world, but for a legit (and sad) reason. I should write some fics about this place.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Corellia (Legends) - It's okay, I guess? I'm not sure how I feel about the Corellian trilogy in general, but there are some things with the Selonians and the Drall that could be interesting for fic? Also, Treasure Ship Row is cool.  

Kessel (Legends) - Hell-realm. Not sure if Kevin J. Anderson's "glitterstim" is the same as "spice," but Han and Kyp have to fight off giant spiders in the dark underground mine, which is certainly dramatic. Had a moon until a prototype Death Star blew it up.

Ithor (Legends) - JUNGLE PLANET POPULATED BY BOTANY NERDS, SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. But they won't let you actually explore the surface, because it's sacrilege. :(

Belsavis (Legends) - Hoth on the surface, Yavin in the rift valleys (but with, like, plantations), plus underground tunnels full of monsters and Jedi artifacts. Home of a secret Jedi botany master and his plant friends, so I'm in favor.

Chad (Legends) - Mostly ocean planet--I guess Space Earthsea, but with more geological activity? Callista makes it sound dreamy and idyllic in her flashbacks, but all the native Chadra-Fan are trying to GTFO, so I dunno.

Nam Chorios (Legends) -Like Tatooine, I would probably hate living there, but it's a great setting for a fic. The perpetual twilight would get old fast, but I love the terraformed ecology, the sentient rocks and the Force storms. Drochs are super creepy, though.

Hijarna (Legends) - There are ruins and sweeping vistas. What can I say, Karrde knows how to pick a secret base. :)

Dathomir (Legends) - Rancors have to be native to somewhere, so why not Dathomir? Courtship of Princess Leia is hokey and weird as all get-out, but it did give us Teneniel Djo, and I love her.

Hapes (Legends) -100% better at you than everything, and they know it. Leave them to it.

Yavin 8 (Legends) - Giant snakes and giant eagles... who literally eat children. Kinda weird being in a place where humanoids are on the bottom of the food chain. Love the Melodies' amphibious lifestyle, though.

Wayland (Legends) - Endor with the serial numbers filed off. Still love it, though. And Palpatine built a lair in a giant mountain! Props to him.

Ryloth (Legends) - sounds like an actual hell realm, but a desert planet? One half in perpetual sun, one half in perpetual darkness, and only a very narrow habitable zone? I’m game.

Msst (Legends) - Terrible, if accurate, name. All we ever see is the eponymous mist, plus giant pink creatures that numb you with poison and devour you alive.  Brakiss's home planet. No wonder he hates everything. On the plus side, his mom got to see Luke Skywalker naked, so good for her.

Kashyyyk - TREE WORLD, WE GO HARD (part II). Except I don't think the Wookiees have handrails, do they?

Hoth - Ice, ice, baby. Ecology makes no sense; it's a fucking glacier. I would hate living there, but I've read so many fluff fics about snowfall fights and sex in X-wings and supply closets that I feel a kind of fondness for it.

Byss (Legends) - Dark. Hidden. Secret. Goth as fuck. I like it. Exegol, but with more class.

Ahch-To - Skellig Michael is great, but too recognizable as itself to really be a good stand-in for somewhere else. Puffins are better than porgs. Great place to hide, but I stand by my claims that the Jedi order could not have arisen there. Love the aesthetic. The Caretakers deserved way better!  

Naboo - Space Italy. Would definitely live there. Closest thing we see to Dinotopia in the GFFA. (Tell me Theed isn't Waterfall City!)

Kef Bir - why not just let the original forest moon have multiple biomes? It's okay to have multiple-biome worlds, I promise, we wont get confused. Epic sweeping grasslands, steep cliffs, massive waves. I love what little we see of it.

Crait - you're going to film a Star War on the Bolivian salt flats and NOT make an epic dream sequence with the night sky reflected on the salt?? What. Hoth with red dust. Crystal foxes look like Vulpix from Pokemon, and I like them.

Ilum - cool ice planet gets turned into planet-destroying superweapon and blown up. Not a fan.

Bespin - I don't know about the ecology, but 10/10 for aesthetics.

Nal Hutta / Nar Shaddaa - Ecological disaster. Gross and full of Hutts.

Niraun (Legends) - I don't like caves and that's pretty much all we see. Especially if those caves are filled with carnivorous hordes of Space Army Ants.

Gamorr (Legends) - "Procedures programs for visiting Gamorr consist of a single line: DO NOT VISIT GAMORR. Really!” Especially do not visit in the season known as "slushtime".

Af'El (Legends) - I know very little about it, but it seems cool? "The Dark World". Home planet of the "wraiths" (Defel) and the homunculus wasps.  

Kijimi - "Disneyworld with space facism". Swirling snow and stone looks cool at night. Too bad that fight scene was such a mess. 

Takodana - it's the English Lake District, I'm never going to be able to suspend my disbelief to believe it's anything else.

D'Qar / Ajan Kloss - Yavin IV knockoffs. If you want me to care, you're gonna have to give me something better.

Exegol -  this “planet” is just a CGI soundstage with a floating pyramid/arena whatever, and lightning. Weather instantly improved when Palpatine died, which strongly suggested he liked it that way. Knockoff Byss.

Mustafar - Literal hell-realm. Lava does not work like that. And apparently, ROTS insists it also has snow and trees, which seems like a little too late.

Canto Bight - you'd think people with that much money would have a better-looking planet. ughhhh.

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 15 of 26

Title: Tehanu (Earthsea Cycle #4) (1990)

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Third-Person, Female Protagonist 

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 6/24/2021

Date Finished: 6/30/2021

Decades after The Tombs of Atuan, Tenar decided to settle down and live an ordinary life on the shepherding Isle of Gont. Now a farmer’s widow, she adopts a disfigured and horrifically abused child, who she names Therru. When a giant dragon deposits a grief-stricken Ged at her doorstep, Tenar finds herself in a strange situation as she cares for her old friend and her adopted daughter. But threats from Therru’s past and a malevolent force on the island soon threaten Tenar’s small family. 

Despair speaks evenly, in a quiet voice.

Content warnings and spoilers below the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Violence and death. Mentioned murder. Severe child abuse. Descriptions of traumatic injury and disfigurement. Mentions of r*pe, including of children. Trauma, sexism, and ableism are explored in depth. 

Tehanu is a much different book than the trilogy that precedes it. Perhaps this is unsurprising, considering the 17-year gap between this book and The Farthest Shore. I’d describe the Earthsea series as “grounded fantasy”. While all of them take place in a magical world, the thesis of each book is universal; the fantasy always comes second. Tehanu takes this idea to an extreme. The story is about everyday life as a common woman in the Earthsea world, with fantasy barely factoring in. The pacing is intentionally slow and introspective, which is something I normally don’t like, but Le Guin is a consistent exception. 

Key characters from the previous books make an appearance. Obviously Tenar is the biggest return, absent since The Tombs of Atuan. The Tenar in this book is older and much more mature, having decided to live a simple life in spite of her adventures and accomplishments. Ged returns, but he’s a shell of his former self, as he mourns the loss of his magic and the man he used to be. Even King Lebannen (formerly Arren, the main character of The Farthest Shore) makes a brief appearance, and is quite a palate cleanser after the horrible men throughout the rest of the book.  

Probably my favorite aspect of the novel is the fact that these characters stand well on their own without magic to prop them up. Tenar explored the terrifying freedom she won in The Tombs of Atuan; got married, settled down, had kids — but still finds herself at a loss on what to do with her life after her husband dies. Ged is in a similar boat; he’s gone from an almost mythic character to an ordinary man, and like Tenar finds himself at a crossroads in life. Other characters embody this idea of transformation and uncertainty; Therru’s escaped her abusers and now has a loving mother, but what does the future hold for someone with her appearance? Stuff like that. 

The idea of metamorphosis and new beginnings is well-trodden. But what makes Tehanu interesting is Le Guin primarily examines this with the middle-aged characters. Tenar and Ged are legendary figures in the world of Earthsea, but life has taken them to an uncertain future. The thrust of the novel lies in finding a purpose and becoming someone new. I also like that Tenar/Ged is endgame; I got Vibes from The Tombs of Atuan, but neither character was in a position where it would work. Seeing them form a romantic relationship much later in life is touching and cute. But it’s not the reason that either of them grow as people; finding one’s purpose is something one has to do on their own. Their relationship only develops once both parties have done so.   

My main complaint about A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book, is the sexism inherent in the setting, which is never examined below the surface level. Perhaps Le Guin’s outlook changed, or perhaps the publishing environment did, because often Tehanu reads like a response to this criticism. The central theme of the book is misogyny, the patriarchy, and its debilitating effects on women. Le Guin examines everything from micro-aggressions (“common wisdom” that happens to paint women as inferior) to domestic issues (“women’s work” and how much that actually is) to outright sexual assault (both in threats and actual acts; it is heavily implied this is part of the abuse Therru endured). She even goes into how powerful women are only considered as such because a man gave them that power. 

While I appreciate the fact she addresses these issues in such a frank, blatant way, at times reading Tehanu felt like reading a basic feminism primer. These subjects are all things I’m familiar with, and I feel like anyone who’s studied key feminist ideas would be aware of them also. Maybe 1990 was different? Le Guin doesn’t add any insights to the bleak reality of patriarchy and sexism, which is a little disappointing compared to previous books. That being said, this book is aimed at young adults despite its dark subject matter. Tehanu could be the first exposure to these ideas that many children receive; looking at it that way, it makes sense that the analysis comes off as basic. 

I also found the book’s examination of gender to be very cishet-normative. That’s definitely not surprising, considering the book was published in 1990, but to a 2021 reader this hasn’t aged super well. There’s a lot of discussion about the relationships and differences between men and women--whether there are any or not, how magic differs between them, the ability to bear children, and so on. There’s a weird sexual component to this, like how wizards (who are exclusively men) have to remain celibate in order to… keep being wizards? But women who are witches don’t have to do that, and that’s an advantage women have? (There’s mentions of male witches too, iirc, but it’s not expanded upon— do they have to remain celibate? Who knows.). I found this whole bit pretty odd and unnecessary, although I realize a lot of my perspective on the matter comes from a modern view of sex and gender (and, y’know, being trans). Not all the gender takes in the book are bad, but they are limited. 

I found Le Guin’s exploration of trauma and ableism through Therru to be more interesting. There’s a lot of examination about how society treats Therru, a survivor of unspeakable abuse. Her trauma is visible due to severe burns along part of her body, leaving her with a missing eye and disfigured hand. Tenar spends much of the novel wondering what future Therru has; no matter how capable she is and how much she acts like any other little girl, strangers gawk at her, or assume she “deserved” what happened to her. Therru becomes happier and more independent over the course of the novel, but relapses into a traumatized state when she encounters one of her abusers. As a survivor, it’s heartbreaking and distressingly realistic. As much as I like Tenar, I almost wish the novel was from Therru’s perspective (other than the brief jump at the end), but I realize it would spoil the ending.  

I’m torn on the ending because, while I thought it was cool and had some interesting revelations, it’s a jarring tonal shift. As I mentioned, Tehanu is a slow novel with a heavy focus on everyday life, and the trials and tribulations both Tenar and Therru experience. There’s even a climactic event a few chapters before the end; the only thing left is a persistent loose thread from earlier in the novel. That subplot explodes to the forefront a bare chapter and a half before the end of the book, and a lot of action-y fantasy stuff happens. It doesn’t come out of nowhere; it’s set up throughout the novel, but it is sudden. 

That being said, I do like that the subplot with dragons vs humans is hinted at as early as The Tombs of Atuan. When Tenar tells the legend about the origin of dragons early in the story, my mind immediately went to that one room from the Labyrinth with the sad winged humanoids painted on its walls. I’m curious if there are hints elsewhere in the series. I also figured out Therru’s true name and how she relates to that subplot based on context clues. While it’s not a shocking twist, it is a satisfying one. Though parts of it gave me a “magical destiny” vibe which is counter to much of the series so far; I do wonder how the last two books will address this. (Also… did Le Guin imply Kalessin is Segoy? AKA God? What did she mean by this. So Ged literally like… hitched a ride from God, who promptly yeeted out of the story until the end? That’s kind of funny. Maybe I misinterpreted something.) 

I probably sound critical of this book, but I did genuinely enjoy it. It just didn’t speak to me the way the previous two did. The next book is a short story collection before the conclusion to the series, so we’ll see where it goes! Tehanu set some stuff up that I expect will be expanded upon in these volumes.